There is one question that divides the education sector like no other: are you a traditional or a progressive teacher?
There is, of course, nuance to this divide, and many teachers would not align themselves too closely with either end of the spectrum.
But, in a nutshell, the traditional view can be summed up as the belief that the most effective teaching comes from teachers carefully sequencing the best knowledge from their subject area and delivering it directly to the whole class.
Progressive approaches, on the other hand, are generally characterised by the idea that teachers should be facilitating pupils’ exploration of their individual interests, thereby nurturing curiosity and thinking skills in the process.
For centuries, there has been debate about the merits of these two stances. But, until now, research into their effectiveness has been scarce.
In the latest iteration of the debate, Sam Sims, an education lecturer at UCL Institute of Education, and his colleague John Jerrim, a professor of education and social statistics, have published a research paper that aimed to find out which of the two approaches leads to better outcomes.
It’s a controversial topic for a study, but, according to Sims, this is exactly why they decided to carry out the research.
“The more that’s riding on a question, the more that people differ on what they think the answer to a question is, the more important it is that we get some data and some empirical evidence to try and work out which ‘side’ is right,” says Sims.
At the same time, he adds, it’s important to remember that there are no real “sides” in teaching: “This isn’t a boxing match,” he says.
For their paper, he and Jerrim analysed a rich data set from Germany: the National Education Panel Study (NEPS). This study tracked a cohort of around 8,300 students throughout their lower secondary school (from the age of 11 to 14) and measured their test scores, interest in learning, and general metacognitive skills. As part of the study, teachers were also asked whether they identified as a traditional or a progressive teacher.
The pair focused on progress and teacher orientation in two subjects: maths and German. This data was particularly insightful, Sims explains, because the analysis could fixate on the effect of the teacher, away from other factors in a child’s life.
“We could take one Year 8 pupil in Germany, say he’s called Jack. His maths teacher is progressive, his German teacher is traditional. We could look at how much progress he made in both subjects, and see how that correlated with his teachers’ orientations,” explains Sims.
“Because we’re looking at the same pupil, we can hold constant things like prior learning, IQ, home background. This allows us to do a better job of isolating the effect of the teachers, which is the thing that differs across the two classrooms, and how that affects children’s learning.”
In order to dig into the data a little deeper, Sims and Jerrim asked four research questions that responded to common arguments made by teachers on either side of the debate.
For example, they claim traditionalists often argue that their carefully sequenced approach is more efficient and equitable than progressives’ less-structured approach.
To see if this was the case, Sims and Jerrim asked: “Do pupils make faster progress in academic subjects when they are exposed to teachers with a more traditionalist orientation?” And: “Do different pupils make more equal progress in academic subjects when they are exposed to more traditionalist teaching?”.
For both of these questions, there was no evidence of a clear difference between the approaches.
On the progressive side, Sims and Jerrim claim teachers often argue that their individualised approach will do a better job of nurturing pupils’ interests, compared with traditionalists’ whole-class teaching.
In response to this, the researchers asked: “Do pupils display greater interest in learning when they are exposed to more progressive teaching or more traditionalist teaching?”, and found evidence that pupils exposed to a more traditionalist teacher actually show greater interest, or growth in interest, in their subjects.
Sims does offer caution here, though: when looking at the results in maths alone, as opposed to maths and German together, no difference was found.
“We can hypothesise, then, that traditional and progressive approaches to teaching may have different effects on pupil interest, depending on the subject,” he concludes.
Another common argument identified by the researchers was the progressives’ claim that their focus on cross-subject problem-solving skills is more likely to benefit pupils’ metacognition, compared to traditionalists’ focus on specific subjects.
The final question, therefore, asked: “Do pupils make faster progress in developing domain-general metacognitive skills when they are exposed to more progressive teaching?”
Here, there was some evidence of a small negative association between traditional teaching and metacognition. But, crucially, there wasn’t a statistically significant relationship between progressive teaching and metacognition.
So, given all of this, which “side” ultimately comes out on top?
In fact, Sims and Jerrmin found little support for the arguments made by either side and concluded that “the debate has largely been an unhelpful distraction for the field”.
It’s important to recognise, though, that there are limitations to this study.
For one, the information about teachers’ orientations relies on them being able to identify themselves as traditional or progressive; the NEPS data doesn’t include measures of actual classroom practice.
Some might also question the extent to which findings from German data can be applied to classrooms in the UK. However, Sims says he is reasonably confident the findings translate.
“There’s a tendency for people in education to think data from another country doesn’t apply but, fundamentally, Germany is an advanced Western European country,” he explains. “We’re talking about fundamental aspects of how people learn, what motivates them, how they develop skills. This is just part of what it is to be human, and that makes me pretty confident that these findings carry over from Germany to England.”
Ultimately, then, what should teachers on either side of the debate take from this research?
Firstly, according to Sims, traditional teachers shouldn’t be concerned by any accusations that their approaches put pupils off learning.
“It is worth thinking about why we found that, in German classrooms, traditional approaches to teaching seem to lead to greater interest in the subject,” he says.
“One thing traditional teachers have on their side is a carefully-sequenced curriculum that unfolds in line with their own knowledge of their subject over time. That allows them to introduce material in a way that poses questions or creates little puzzles, or provides interesting contrasts between the material, in a way that a progressive teacher would find it more difficult to do.”
That, though, is just one finding in one subject.
More broadly, Sims stresses that teachers need to pay less attention to the progressive versus traditional debate, and more on teaching approaches we have evidence for.
“This is a long-standing and often quite a vociferous debate in education. Largely, what we see here is that it doesn’t seem to matter that much,” he says.
In the end, then, pitting traditional against progressive approaches is, he adds, “not the best way to think about the question: how should I teach?”
